Notion Toggles: Toggle Lists, Toggle Headings and Expand All

To make a toggle in Notion, type > and a space at the start of a line, or type /toggle, then write the title and put the content underneath it. If the toggle should be a section of the page, make a toggle heading instead: click the ⋮⋮ handle, choose Turn into, then Toggle heading 1, 2 or 3. To open or close every toggle at once, press cmd/ctrl + option/alt + T. I'd use toggle headings for a long page's sections and toggle lists for optional detail, because only a toggle heading still counts as a heading in the table of contents.

For an FAQ, a set of steps or the background behind a decision, choose a toggle list. For the main sections of a client portal, an onboarding page or a course outline, choose toggle headings. For anything a client has to read or act on, skip the toggle: Notion has no setting that makes a toggle start open, so whatever sits inside waits for someone to click.

Toggle list or toggle heading: which one do you need?

Both fold content away and open it again with a click. The difference is what does the folding. A toggle list is a block with a title line, while a toggle heading is a real Heading 1, 2 or 3 that can open and close. That one difference decides how each behaves in the table of contents and in the API.

How do you make a toggle list?

Notion's keyboard shortcuts page documents three ways to start one on an empty line:

1. Type > followed by a space. Two other Notion help pages give the same shortcut.
2. Type /toggle and choose Toggle list from the block menu.
3. Press cmd/ctrl + option/shift + 7. On a Mac that's cmd + option + 7; on Windows and Linux it's ctrl + shift + 7.

Whichever route you take, the first line becomes the toggle's title. When the toggle is closed, that title is all the page shows, so write it as the label a reader scans for: “Payment terms,” not “More info.”

The number shortcut has two catches. Notion notes that Windows machines might already have ctrl + shift bound to another function, and its shortcut list is written for English/QWERTY keyboards. If the 7 combination does nothing on your machine, fall back on > + space or /toggle.

Turn an existing block into a toggle

You don't have to retype a list to fold it. Hover over the block, click the ⋮⋮ handle and choose Turn into → Toggle list. TechRepublic's toggle list walkthrough converts a block it has just typed this way and notes that toggle lists are available on all plans, free included.

From the keyboard, select the block, press cmd/ctrl + / and type the block type you want. Notion says that shortcut changes “one or more selected blocks,” so a run of bullets can become a run of toggles in one pass. Typing /turn at the start or end of a block opens the same list of choices.

In the mobile app there are no / commands and no icons that appear on hover. Tap + on the editing toolbar above the keyboard to open the full menu of block types, and use the same toolbar's indent option to nest a line under the toggle above it.

How do you put content inside a toggle?

Open the toggle and type in the space under its title. Press / there and you can add any kind of block, from a to-do list to a table; TechRepublic's example toggle holds both. To move blocks that already exist, drag them by their ⋮⋮ handle into the open toggle.

On a long page the keyboard is quicker. Put the cursor on the line directly below the toggle and press tab: Notion's shortcut list says indenting nests a block “inside the block above it.” Press shift + tab to bring a line back out. Selecting the toggle itself also selects everything nested under it, so you can move, duplicate or delete a whole FAQ answer in one go.

Toggles can sit inside toggles, and the NoteForms glossary entry on toggle lists suggests nesting them to build multi-level outlines. I'd stop at two levels. Each level is one more click between the reader and the answer, and a third level usually means that part of the page wants a heading of its own.

How do you make a toggle heading?

Start from a heading or a line of plain text. Notion's help page on headings gives the main route: hover over the line, click the ⋮⋮ handle in the left margin, choose Turn into and pick Toggle heading 1, Toggle heading 2 or Toggle heading 3. Content you place inside it then collapses and expands with the heading, and you fill it the same way as a toggle list.

The release notes that introduced toggle headings list three more ways in:

• Open the block menu with / or the + button to the left of the line, then select Toggle heading 1/2/3.
• Type > in an empty heading block, or #, ## or ### in an empty toggle block.
• Use a slash command such as /turnintotoggleh1.

The cmd/ctrl + / shortcut converts as well. Notion VIP's roundup of the feature uses it to turn an ordinary toggle or heading into a toggle heading, and its author likes “to amplify the hierarchy with colors and dividers.” Both take seconds: type /red or any other color name to color a block, as Notion's styling help describes, and type --- for a divider.

Keep section headings in the table of contents

A toggle heading is still a heading, and that matters for navigation. Notion's table of contents lists “all the headings used in your page” and indents H2s and H3s, and a page with two or more headings shows one on the right side by default. The same help page notes that indented headings aren't included. A heading typed inside a toggle list sits indented under that toggle, so going by that note it drops out of the contents. If a section should appear in the table of contents, make the toggle itself the heading.

How do you open or close toggles, one or all at once?

The four routes differ in how many toggles they reach:

• Click the arrow to open or close one toggle.
• Press cmd/ctrl + enter with the cursor in a toggle list item to open or close that one.
• Drag across several toggles to select them, then click any selected toggle to open them all together. The same move closes them, and clicking a toggle outside the selection opens only that one, as Super's guide to opening all toggles points out.
• Press cmd/ctrl + option/alt + T to open every toggle: cmd + option + T on a Mac, ctrl + alt + T on Windows. When they're open, the same keys close them all.

Notion's shortcut list describes that last combination as expanding or closing “all toggles in a toggle list.” Super's guide is broader and says it “expands all toggle blocks on the page, not just the selected ones.” A walkthrough on notionapps.com gives the same keys, says they work “regardless of selection” and describes the same select-and-click route for part of a page. So if you want only part of a page open, select those toggles and click; save the shortcut for opening or closing the whole page.

You may also land on an older note on two of Notion's own pages, the help page on writing and editing basics and the headings page, saying toggles have to be opened and closed manually, with no way to do them all at once. The keyboard shortcuts page is the one that documents the combination above, and both editorial guides give the same keys.

The rest of that note still holds: there's no way to “make them open or closed by default,” and none of the other sources offers one. A toggle always waits for a click, so whatever goes inside it is read only by people who open it.

Where do toggles show up in databases and templates?

Put a toggle in a database template

A toggle placed in a database template repeats on every page made from it. Notion says templates “can contain any type of content” and that whatever you choose shows up “identically on each page created with the template.” For anything you'd otherwise paste into each new client page, such as a folded FAQ or a list of handoff steps, I'd put it in the template once. Choosing which template a view uses by default is covered in our guide to database template defaults, and if the page should appear on a schedule, a repeating database template carries the toggles along with everything else.

Sub-item toggles are a view setting

The toggle next to a task with sub-items isn't a block at all. It's a display option: under Sub-items → Display options, table, list and timeline views offer Nested in toggle, which lets you open and close parent items to show or hide their sub-items. Flattened list shows parents and sub-items together in one flat list. Board, calendar and gallery views offer Card property or Flattened list instead, according to Notion's sub-items help page, which also mentions a Show nesting toggle on title switch under Sub-items → Advanced settings. If a chart or view seems to lose sub-items, start with that display choice; our fix for charts missing subtasks walks through it.

Reuse one toggle across client pages

For an FAQ that several client pages share, a synced block keeps a single copy to edit. Following Notion's synced blocks help, drag across the toggle to select it, click ⋮⋮, choose Turn into → Synced block, then click the copy icon and paste it where you need it. The sync handles the copies; you still decide who can open the original page. Someone without access to the page that holds the original won't see the synced content, which is the first thing to check when a synced block isn't visible to a client. Editing a copy needs edit access to the original, and synced block permissions covers how to set that.

How are toggles written in the API and enhanced markdown?

If you generate or import pages, the split between the two kinds carries through. Notion's block reference has a toggle block whose rich text is the title and whose children are the folded content. A toggle heading is an ordinary heading block with is_toggleable set to true: if it's true, the heading toggles and can support children. The API also lists heading_4, but the editor's menu offers toggle headings 1 to 3.

Notion's enhanced markdown format writes a toggle list as a details element, with the children indented:

<details color="Color">
<summary>Toggle title</summary>
	Children (must be indented)
</details>

A toggle heading is a markdown heading with a toggle attribute on its first line, followed by its children:

# Heading {toggle="true" color="Color"}

Which toggle behaviors do the sources agree on?

For toggles, the useful evidence is agreement between sources. The matrix below sets Notion's help pages, release notes and developer docs against the readable guides in the search results for “toggles notion” and counts how many back each behavior.

The only real conflict is opening everything at once, and it comes down on the side of the shortcut. Notion's keyboard shortcuts page documents it, both editorial guides give the same keys, and the Reddit reply in the results simply quotes that page; the manual-only line on the other two help pages reads as an older note left in place. The default-state limit in that same sentence is the part nothing contradicts, so plan your pages around it.

When shouldn't you hide something in a toggle?

Use toggle headings for the sections of a long page and toggle lists for optional detail inside them. Keep anything a client must read, approve or act on outside a closed toggle. Notion can't make a toggle start open, so a payment deadline or an approval request inside one depends on the client clicking. The toggle handles the folding; deciding what a client is allowed to skip stays with you, and our guide to what a Notion client portal should show covers the rest of that decision.

If you're tidying an existing long page, I'd convert its main sections to toggle headings first and check that the table of contents still reads well. Then fold only the detail most readers can skip.